Authority of Transcendent God

by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project

What do you believe—really believe—about God today?

What we believe about God depends entirely on our perception of God—our God view, meaning how we see Him. We struggle to trust God when we do not really know Him in relationship. Do you trust people you do not know? It is one thing to meet people and become their acquaintance, and it is another thing to get to know them. To say, “I believe that God has all authority to empower me”… how do you know that?

We are helpless on our own. We can only be helped by a power greater than ourselves with the ability and authority to change how we think if we are going to have a chance at recovery from our problem. Even if we agree that God exists, what does that mean for us in our recovery from selfish sin addiction that leads to symptoms of every other form of addictive thinking, feeling and behaving?

Start Your Engines

Before there is any other discussion about anything concerning life and the universe, there is the issue of how it all began. It all had to begin somewhere at some point in time. Single-cell micro-organisms; big bang… What banged? What was the material? Where did it come from? What all was in its DNA?

The truth and reality that cannot be disputed is that something always was. What was it that always? Was all of the DNA for everything that ever was and is contained in it? When and how did it suddenly begin to evolve? What triggered its evolution? Contained within it would have to be the trigger to initiate the process.

Wow! It is so much easier for me to wrap my mind around a living and creative God to be at the helm of the creative process of the universe and the life evolving in it, then it is to wrap my mind around an impersonal inanimate object without an intelligent thought that exploded into the intricacies of intelligent life throughout its progress.

Transcendent God

Dr. Stephen C. Meyer is a Cambridge University-trained philosopher of science, the author of peer-reviewed publications in technical, scientific, philosophical and other books and journals. His signal contribution to ID theory is given most fully in Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design.

Dr. Meyer talks about all matter in the universe as being singular in the sense that it is bound to a standard, or law, of cause and effect. What that means is that a singular universe under the law of cause and effect (the law under which we live by and are controlled by everyday) had to be caused in the first place from the beginning of it before anything could happen in it, to it, and because of it.

The sun happened in the universe. The magnetic gravitational pull of the sun caused the planets to orbit around it, and so the earth we live in orbits around the sun, following the singular cause and effect law of our solar system. We happen to live on the earth. At the earth’s core is it’s own magnetic field that repels against the gravitational pull of the sun just enough that it maintains the distance of some 93 million miles from the sun while it takes about 365 days to revolve all the way around it. To do this the earth travels at a clip of about 67,000 miles per hour. Because the earth has it’s own magnetic core, it has it’s own gravitational force that keeps us from floating off the surface of it into outer space everyday. While the earth is traveling 67,000 miles per hour around the sun, it is rotating on its own axis at a speed of just over 1000 miles per hour to spin a complete turn in twenty-four hours (the circumference of the earth is around 25,000 miles). Wow! We’re really moving. Do you feel that? Why don’t we feel that?

So while the sun happened to the earth, life happened on or in the earth, because of the sun . The earth’s atmosphere and stratosphere, and all that, happened to the life that is in the earth. Gravity and oxygen and carbon dioxide and nitrogen and water and food happened to every form of life that is in the earth since the beginning. We are alive today because of this singular cause and effect that is the law of the universe, and our sun, and our earth, and all of the life-giving and sustaining contents in the universe, sun, and earth.

Where did the earth come from? Where did the sun come from? Where did the universe come from? If the universe, and/or even the most rudimentary contents and processes that evoke cause and emit effect existed eternally from before the beginning, it would no longer be under the singular law of cause and effect, but would transcend that law into a creator of some kind. If the universe is transcendent than everything that consists within is transcendent, which of course, we know it isn’t and can’t be because of the evidence of cause and effect. Dr. Meyers explains that what separates God from the universe is that God is not singular but transcendent. God is transcendent and does not exist under the singular law of cause and effect. In fact, God created the law. God is the creator of the singular cause and effect law and system of the evolving, living, and working universe. The problem with evolution without God is that evolution would require the universe to be transcendent. Even the wildest evolutionary theories cannot answer where the very first thing came from, and how long was it stagnant before it began the process and activity of evolving. What brought whatever it was to life is and will always be the burning question.

Even the evolutionary forms of being in the universe had to be created by transcendent God. Whether creation took six days or six billion years is really beside the point. What matters when examining the the authority and sovereignty of God is to accept that God is transcendent and everything else, including the created spiritual reality, is singular; created and under the sovereign authority of Almighty God. The entire ever-expanding universe is under the authority of transcendent God. The worst disaster ever encountered on planet earth is not even noticed or felt in the context of the vast universe, yet as we explore the truth of Scripture, God is paying attention to the number of hairs on your head. You are but a speck on the earth. The earth is but a speck in the galaxy. The galaxy is but a spot in the universe, all created by transcendent God. Yet, God notices you. He notices every move you make; and every breath you take.

Authority & Sovereignty

Everything that lives in whatever capacity it exists does so under the authority of its creator. Every plant, animal, man, woman, and child lives under the authority of the Creator. This ultimate authority means that God is sovereign, which means that while God has put systematic process into motion according to the singular law of cause and effect, and allows for the “natural” consequence of cause and effect throughout the universe, from the most far away star to the systematic process in the human body to a speck of dust, God’s sovereignty can interject and intervene wherever and whenever it deems to do so.

Whenever we talk about, or pray for, for that matter, divine intervention, divine protection, divine inspiration, or divine providence, what is the meaning behind the word ‘divine’? We are talking about and seeking something other-worldly; something above and beyond ourselves; something and someone that transcends the singular cause and effect reality that we live in and cannot escape on our own. God is divine. His power, authority, and control transcends our physical reality; our cognitive reality, and even our known spiritual reality since we tend not to expand our spiritual concepts and precepts beyond what we are able to comprehend.

It is imperative to establish this truth in order to continue in the exploration of what it takes to successfully function in the application of authentic recovery that works empowered by God. If we live under God’s authority then when we pray for God to heal us and deliver us from our addictive mess it should occur without question, correct? Yes…and no. The blessing for us is that we have the free will to choose for ourselves. On the other hand, the problem for us is that we have the free will to choose for ourselves.

Does that mean that God created us to sin? Did God then create sin? No…and, no. We have our selfish sin nature because Adam sinned but Adam was not created with a selfish sin nature. Adam was created with a human nature. All this means is that Adam was not God. Adam, the human being, made a choice that was independent of the will of God since Adam’s will was independent of the will of God.

Lucifer (Satan) was an angel created by God to be majestic and splendid, as were all of the angels. The problem is that Lucifer also was created with a will independent of God’s will, and made a choice out of that “freedom” and independence that went contrary to the will of God. Because Lucifer was not God, he could choose to act contrary to the will of God and did so. He then persuaded one third of all the angels to choose and act with him contrary to the will of God.

When Adam sinned of his own free will from his human nature, even in the absence of a sin nature, he left for all humans who would follow him, a selfish sin nature. But before Adam sinned, Satan acted against God and was banished from heaven to this place called earth. From Satan’s hostility toward God came evil and every immoral thing. Then Satan took it out on God with an assault against His creation, including against Adam and Eve. Satan was someone with guile and influence that rather easily persuaded Adam and Eve to give in to their human desire and the rest is history. Adam and Eve had it all with what God had given them and yet they gave it all away. They forfeited the existence they could have had in uncorrupted fellowship with God, but as soon as they wanted to be God—MEdom—or at the very least, chose independence from God, they experienced the consequence they had been warned about.

When we pray for God’s help, healing, deliverance, provision, protection, and every other blessing, God desires to respond to us by blessing us, which is His will. However, we have the penchant for making cognitive choices in our independence that are contrary to God’s will, that lead to behavior that is contrary to God’s will. Therefore, our cognitive choices result in behavior leading us directly into consequences that prove contrary to God’s will for the universe and plan for us and the world we live in. As Satan fell from heaven, and as Adam fell from utopia, we have fallen hard and we need divine intervention if we are going to recover and get back up on solid stable footing again. Once you accept that God is transcendent, meaning that God is not restricted or confined to the singular law of cause and effect, and that the rest of all that exists does so under the law of cause and effect, then it stands to reason that God is above such a law. Since God is creator of all than it also stands to reason that God is the authority over all that He has created. Every sun and star, every planet, every piece of material in the universe—even the chemical makeup of the air space not consisting of visible material matter—is under the authority of its creator.